Friday, April 13, 2018

Organizing Nick

The editors at Nick animation have worked without an Editors Guild contract for decades. Several times they've agitated and signed cards; each time the studio brushed them back. Now, however, the brush-backs have ceased:

... An independent arbitrator this morning signed off that a clear majority of the currently nearly three dozen Nickelodeon Animation Studio staff members had inked union cards and sought IATSE and its Local 700, the Motion Picture Editors Guild representation. ... Nickelodeon and parent company Viacom reiterated their decision not to challenge the move towards unionization. ...

This new collective step joins the IATSE agreements that NAS already has in place with the Animation Guild among others. It also is another feather in the 81-year-old Editors Guild cap to bring Hollywood workers into the collective bargaining fold.

This is doubly impressive because Nick has never been an easy walnut to crack. And the national political landscape is tilted heavily against labor unions.